Inside brain, outside brain...

[bunn]

We'd rather give ourselves electric shocks than be alone with our thoughts, says new study


I was interested by that news story, and thought about it as I mowed the lawn. It seemed odd to me that they ruled out the person who had found a pen and started making a 'to do' list. Surely, that is a person who is not only comfortable alone with their thoughts, but has decided that their thoughts were so useful, they were worried about forgetting them and wanted to record them for their future convenience?

One thing I sometimes like to do in my head is design elaborate rabbit houses. It seems an odd and arbitrary division to say that you are alone with your thoughts while you work out how the doors would be secured and what materials to use for the roof and how to cut a pleasing set of curved windows that could be shuttered in the winter, but to say that as soon as you start to draw the thing on paper, you are somehow operating outside your head. I often write things in my head, but my head has very poor storage facilities so I forget them. Otherwise this blog would have a lot more stuff in it.

I wonder what people who would rather shock themselves with electricity than be alone with their thoughts, think about while mowing the lawn or hoovering? I can't believe anyone thinks about the mowing.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the distinction does seem odd. I've done solitary walks lasting 8 or 9 hours, in which I usually mentally write endlesss long LJ posts that never get written, but in most cases, the lengthy mental blog posts are prompted by something I saw on the walk. I don't know if the researchers would accept that as me being alone with my thoughts, or not.

But I still think the knowledge that This Is A Test would intrude, even if you were self-policing at home. "I'm starting the test now." "How long has it been?" "Am I allowed to stop now?" "Oh no! I noticed a news headline out of the corner of my eye. Have I ruined the whole thing now?" It's still an artificial situation.

I do wonder how clearly it was explained. The article says they were told not to entertain themselves. To me, writing a story in my head, or trying to remember the words to a long ballad, or whatever, do count as entertaining myself. I would very possibly take that instruction as meaning, "just sit here and try to empty your mind. DON'T THINK ABOUT ANYTHING INTERESTING AT ALL."

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It's definitely very artificial: both the 'We are Doing a Test' thing and the fact that apparently you can think inside your head but not with the aid of any supplies. I wonder how many people literally tried not to think. That WOULD be hard although the writeup suggests it was not the intended task, it would be so easy for people to end up doing it.